Definitions

• What do ordinary people think they are?
• Can race/ethnicity be changed?
• Where do these groups come from?

In Practice

• How does ethnicity/race work in reality?
• Prone to conflict? Why?

What is common sense notion of race/ethnicity?

Essentialist/primordialist definitions

Complicate those definitions

2-3 minutes:

According to "common sense":

What are definitions/key attributes of "race" or an "ethnic group"

essentialist definition of race/ethnicity:

an identity where membership is based on descent and is

• inherited at birth
• fixed (unchangable for individuals, and unchanging over time)
• universal (all group members share traits, capacities, competences, behaviors)

Thus:

• natural ("blood", "genes")
• shared culture (language, religion), tradition, history

Checkered Past

• Nazis and Final Solution

• White supremacy and slavery

Checkered Past

• Nazis and Final Solution

• White supremacy and slavery

But also…

• Used by oppressed/colonized peoples
• Arab nationalism, Black Power / Nationalist movements, Indian independence

- Why does it matter she is more than 50%?

- How does her father’s family history relate to the received history of African Americans?

primordialist definition of race/ethnicity:

an identity where membership is based on descent and is

• inherited at birth

• even though not in fact, people think of it as:

  • fixed (unchangable for individuals, and unchanging over time)
  • universal (group members share traits, capacities, competences, behaviors)
  • natural ("blood", "genes")

Thus, ethnicity/race:

• durable/hard to change once created
• shared (or imagination of shared) culture (language, religion), tradition, history
• even if not natural, act "as if" they are natural